Clown
by LittleBlueNayru
Summary: He had always been a clown, and that's all he'd ever be.


Disclaimer: I don't own LoZ.

I don't know what to call this....after reading several stories involving Zant and seeing none like this, I wrote this as a tribute. And yes, it may be random, obscure, disturbing, and plain incomprehensible. I actually tried writing seriously, so far as to getting into Zant's insane character, and I want to know if I got the point across or spectacularly failed. Be brutal.

* * *

_Funny._

From his birth, that single word adequately described the entirety of his being. From his strange, bright eyes and face to his harmless infantile exclamations and expressions, _funny_ summed up his existence perfectly. He radiated happiness and innocence, and when he smiled and laughed and played as infants play, he put the adults at ease and made them laugh along. They called him a third Sol for how he could cheer those in his presence, leaving nothing unaffected by himself.

_Foolish._

His childish ways followed him to school, where the teachers accented their laughs with sighs and wishes that he would grow up, and where his classmates delighted in his antics. Their ethereal laughter rang out loud and echoed through the stone buildings when he spoke, when he laughed, when he joked, when he danced. He was their favorite, their beloved. He was their star, their third Sol. He was their source of entertainment. But the years slowly, inevitably passed, and as the time slipped away, the laughs of joy sprung from innocence turned into laughs of spite, born from adult awareness. He joked on, unaware that he was no longer loved, but mocked and ridiculed, and made a joke himself. He laughed on, unaware that his companions no longer laughed with him but at him. Ignorant was he, to think the golden years of childhood would last.

_Joker._

Then one day his bright eyes truly opened at last, losing the precious film of innocence the child carried with him well past its time. The third Sol saw that where once he cast pure light, the reflections were now false and tainted. Wounded, the foolish joker hid and continued to laugh and dance and tease as his old friends laughed at him. But his bright eyes began to burn; with shame, fury, and unrealized dreams and desires. The laughs grew uneasy.

_Jester._

In despair the joker kept dancing, kept joking, kept laughing, his burning eyes seeing nonexistent things, peering into imaginary worlds, gazing after might-have-beens and what-ifs. Until one day the palace called for him with the offer of serving the palace as a jester, for his fame as a joker was widely known. The third Sol shone brightly again, the burning eyes alight with visions of acceptance and fame and power. He went, and they gave him rich clothes of the finest materials, long-sleeved and covered with intricate, ornate designs, glowing with pleasing green patterns, woven especially for his larger stature. In the clothes fit for royalty he joked and danced and laughed and made merry, before the people, before the court, before the Twilight Princess.

_Dreamer._

The Twilight Princess was a rare exotic beauty, even among the more refined palace folk. Every day she called for the jester to entertain her, to light up her day as the third Sol. So the third Sol obliged, twirling and dancing, laughing and joking and singing, enthralled as the mystic princess laughed lightly at him, burning bright eyes seeing a beauty that would fall to his charms, pave the way to the higher ranks of the court, and secure him the throne. For only a third Sol, with so pure and righteous a light, could guide the people in their wretched half-light. The burning eyes flared, and saw a majestic man, towering over the rest, leading his people to a realm of light where all could be as Sols, with a fiery-haired beauty standing lovingly by his side. The jester smiled and dreamed, dancing on in joy, for soon all his desires would be realized.

_Traitor._

The third Sol fled to the highest balcony of the Twilight Palace, feeble light almost gone in the thralls of despair. Weakly the dreaming jester threw himself to the ground, screaming and beating, the childish film of innocence glazing over his burning, burning eyes one last time. For how could he have been denied? How could he, the third Sol, have been passed over as Twilight King, when only the third Sol was worthy to rule over the shadows of the Twilight, and lead them to their glorious new future? How could the third Sol, the light of the life of the precious, beautiful Twilight Princess, have been rejected by the enrapturing creature who surely returned his feelings?

Heavy rumbling from above froze the fire, and glazed innocent eyes, the fires smoldering underneath, stared curiously into the twilit sky and found a god.

_Madman._

The Usurper King sat upon his twilit throne, laughing, joking, dancing, burning eyes locked away from the world, the third Sol shining on his people and no one at all. For all his dreams were realized; the people bowed to the third Sol as loving, obedient servants, and soon the foolish beautiful Twilight Princess would see that she could not match his power, and bow to him as well, basking in his light, subordinate by his side. The eyes burned, and now the fantasies they saw crept to his head and poisoned his mind, and he lived his dreams of ruling the Twilight, of ruling the Light, of possessing fame. The third Sol tainted his own light, and the adults and children that used to laugh so uneasily now moaned in deserved despair. But now, why would he need their acceptance? He was King! Not even the foolish, coveted Twilight Princess who sought her title back with her flimsy light-dwelling mongrel could unseat him. He was the greatest, the strongest, the best, second only to his great god. If the two dogs challenged him, they would simply need to be taught a lesson. The bitch would be thoroughly beaten, and once subdued, he would finally teach her that he was superior to her, and win her beauty at last. Her brutish lackey would be maimed or killed, depending on how he saw fit, and how the two dogs before him screamed. The burning eyes played out these delightful scenes, and the mind danced with the body, erratically twisting, jumping, spinning, bending, inverting, contorting into shapes unimaginable from upon the Twilight Throne and the third Sol gave a eulogy to himself and rose into the air, pronouncing his challenge.

_Clown._

The mad, desperate jester fell back upon the throne, severely whipped by the whelp of the Twilight Princess. Burning bright eyes saw things surreal, futures unrealized, lives unlived, and the mind could not explain to the eyes why these things were not so, for the burning eyes and the burning brain were as one, lusting after wisps of thought and unreal realities with relentless determination, blind to all else and consumed by power. The fool tried to dance, to laugh, to joke, to scream, but he was simply a funny, limp clown now, a rag doll that even his god could not help. The last thing he beheld before the fiery brands impaled him and pain consumed him, his burning eyes with the passion for power stared into nothing, trying to see the fame and acceptance and kingship, and spying only the laughing children and adults who had always ridiculed him, since the moment he was born.

He was a joke. A fool. A plaything.

Then he was ripped to shreds, and as he departed for the other realms, he uttered a sound which might possibly have been him laughing at himself laughing at those who laughed at him, the third Sol shining false light on the world one last time before fading into a darkness more absolute than Twilight. And in the darkness the dead third Sol with his bright burning eyes lit the hell of the dead world, and made a spotlit stage for him to dance and joke and play and laugh, laughing eternally, insanely, at him and his burning eyes and his foolishness and all the other fools, and his poor Twilight Princess who did not bask in his light. And he laughed and laughed, and when his god stood gasping for breath before him just beyond the veil, he laughed harder, maniacally, playing king and god to his king and laughing with the thrill, and contorted his neck to rip his god to shreds, laughing insanely all the way and burning bright eyes finally seeing the one truth amidst his fantasies for love and fame and power.

He had never been anything but a clown, and that's all he'd ever be.

* * *

A random, obscure, disturbing Zant tribute.

Like I said before, I want to know if I made something good or botched it up horribly. Be brutal. Also, I don't exactly know what the genre would be, so...any suggestions?


End file.
